THE NEWBORN
One
March 9th 2058. Vancouver was on flood alert. Torrential rain lashed the windshield; my wipers barely kept up. A stream of headlights splintered through the spray on the northbound highway, forcing me to hunch over the wheel, eyes locked on the road ahead. Few headed south toward the city. At least I’d insisted my son Jude stay home. He gave me hell for taking my friend Frank’s forty-year-old Honda Civic. The gas-guzzling relic ran on petrol. Petrol, of all things. Jude knew I had no choice, but he stormed off in one of his sulks anyway. At seventeen, he should have been past that behaviour, but instead, his discontent with the world ground him down. I hated leaving him that way and nearly turned back a hundred times. But I’d waited five years, and nothing, not the flood, not the storm, not even Jude, would stop me from bringing that fascist biotech magnate Mason Cole to justice.
As the night wore on, I tapped the Civic's archaic touchscreen, searching for news. Not until I was a few kilometres from the North Shore did fractured updates burst through the static: The Fraser River is breaching its defences. High tide at noon. Evacuation underway. As the city came into view, I tightened my grip on the wheel and slammed on the brakes in shock. We'd become accustomed to flooding and wildfire, adapting as best we could. People moved home and lived with relatives or friends. We carried on as best we could. Worked around the power outages. Endured the food shortages. Resilience was our middle name. But this was different.
Morning sunlight burned through a gap in the storm clouds, casting an otherworldly glow on my old home. The city was drowning in slow motion. Fumbling with the gears, I swerved into the driveway of an abandoned house hidden behind a mask of creepers as morbid curiosity fixed my gaze on the partially submerged skyline. Tower blocks rose like tombstones in a watery graveyard, and Lions Gate Bridge tilted precariously towards the deep. Thousands trudged up the hillside to the Trudeau Stadium, and I realised it was both the evacuation site and temporary court. I held back, waiting for a spec of courage to leave the relative comfort of the car and propel me along the potholed street to join the crowd.
Some minutes later, the relentless tide of city folk swept me up the hill. I stopped and stood on tiptoes, batting away the unruly curls flopping over my eyes to see over the heads in front of me, only to be buffeted along like a child. Clutching my testimony, I bowed my head, trying to convince myself the mass of people was a forest in the breeze. I elbowed an oak of a man, pushing me to one side. Maybe I should turn back. There was still time. The justices would think I’d broken down in the storm. But how could I face Jude if I turned back? I couldn’t bear to disappoint him. I couldn't win. If Mason Cole were acquitted, I’d face the wrath of the crowd. Convicted, his enmity would make me a target forever.
As we neared the stadium, I squeezed through the melee to a gap by Gate D and pressed my back against the concrete. Weighed down by treasured possessions, the evacuees churned around the stadium, waiting for the gates to open. Squinting, they spat out Cole’s name like phlegm, their disgust rippling through the crowd. Others shared their vitriol via LifeAid bracelets, our solar-powered link to the internet for everything from communication to monitoring our health and wellbeing, even feeding our pets. I cursed, realising I’d left mine at home and checking in with Jude wasn’t an option. I was about to ask one of the evacuees if I could borrow theirs when a bald guy with wispy hair and a shaggy beard stopped beside me and fiddled with his pants. I shot him a look of disbelief, but he pretended he hadn’t seen me. As the trickle of piss hit the wall, I turned away, holding my breath to avoid the stench. When I looked back, he was lost in the crowd.
A clamour signalled the guards had opened the gates. Parents, carers, and family members grasped children’s hands, urging them to stay close. Stay safe. Stay alive. A mixture of fear and excitement showed on the faces of the young people. I thought again about asking to borrow a LifeAid, wishing Jude and I had made up. His asthma was troubling him, and he often forgot to renew his steroid patch when I wasn't around. At seventeen, I shouldn’t have to remind him.
Half an hour later, I loitered behind the stragglers before heading inside. The covered area was littered with cans, empty chip packets and distorted garbage. The bars were shut with the screens up, but the stale smell of spilt beer made me turn up my nose, and to my frustration, the queue for the women’s toilets snaked along the wall as far as I could see.
We filtered through the tunnel, emerging by the dugout. The stadium was a ruin. A hastily built stage stood at the centre of the weed-spattered pitch. Opposite, most of the white seats that used to spell UNITED were cracked or missing, while those around them, once blood-red, had faded to a washed-out pink. The goals were long gone, but traces of the touchline and penalty boxes peeked through the docks and dandelions. Vibrant graffiti covered the exposed concrete, capturing the spirit of past matches. Heavy with nostalgia, I recalled the times Jude and I came to watch with his father before our split. I glimpsed Jude’s face as a young boy, his eyes wide with excitement. The packed stands of fans clapping in unison, their gasps at near misses and the deafening roar when they scored. The sweet scent of hot chocolate lingering in the air, Jude’s favourite drink and still a comfort, although lately, his face seldom shone with the same unbridled joy.
Trudeau had been out of power for a decade when he attended the first Vancouver United match. Many of the evacuees filtering into the stadium were too young to recall his time as prime minister, but since the autocrats took hold, those who lived through his administration often reminisced about his liberal agenda, especially women. But his days as the honorary guest were over; the stadium had been closed for several years, and the dugout where the manager and players used to sit was now reserved for witnesses. With a sideways glance at the others, I took my place, wishing I’d braved the queue for the washroom. The rain had eased, and a blanket of slate-grey clouds trapped the unseasonally humid air, sticking my thighs to the plastic seat. I fixed my attention on the front page of my testimony, mulling over the five years since I began the investigation that ended in Mason Cole’s arrest six months before. It had been a long road. The trial was due to go ahead three months before but was postponed when the Director of Public Prosecutions was found drowned in the marina. Details of his corruption were about to break, and he took his own life. Now, despite the judiciary being in disarray, the trial was finally going ahead, offering a shred of normality amid the chaos. Cole faced eighty counts of manslaughter through criminal negligence. I couldn’t shake the image of the families, their loved ones robbed too soon, victims of Cole’s reckless clinical trials using unlicensed advanced biotechnology.
The witness on my left was biting his nails to the quick. He reminded me of Jude. A couple of years younger. Hair over his eyes. The slouch that comes with a growing teenage body.
‘I’m Kit.’
‘Yeah?’ He stared straight ahead.
‘Don’t you have any notes?’
‘Hey, look!’ He pointed.
Seven SkyPods appeared above the opposite stand to gasps from the crowd. Another six followed, and soon after, four more. The Pods hovered, the drivers surveying the scene before landing beside the North Stand. They climbed out of their egg-shaped vehicles, no bigger than an average-sized shower cubicle and gathered together on the sideline, smiling and waving, before making their way up the steps to the corporate suite in the middle of the stand.
‘Who are they?’ the boy asked.
‘I’m not sure. Dignitaries? Mason Cole’s cronies? The rich and powerful, I guess. They’re the only folk with working SkyPods.’
‘Huh. Fuck them.’
‘Whoa…steady.’
I grinned, nudging the boy in the ribs as six green-suited justices marched from the tunnel onto the pitch and stepped onto the stage. I itched to get a closer look, but the last driver stepped out of his Pod, stealing my attention: the Chief Justice, known as Defence. Once a big-shot attorney in the city. A cloak the colour of wheatfields draped his large frame to his ankles and billowed behind him as he strode onto the stage and raised a hand. Many in the crowd stood and applauded. Defence lowered his hand, and they fell silent. All eyes were on the tunnel.
Mason Cole came into view flanked by two armed guards, a solar-powered pain ring binding his wrists. I chilled despite the heat. It was the first time I’d seen him since his arrest.
‘I thought he was taller,’ said the boy.
‘What he lacks in height, he makes up for in ego.’
The boy looked at me quizzically before scanning the stands. ‘My brother’s here somewhere.’
He nibbled at his thumbnail, drawing blood as the defendant took centre stage, circling and waving—the star of the show. Irritated by the heat and the sweat patch under my armpits, I steadied my breathing. A few more hours and it would be over. I’d kept a low profile for years. To Cole, I was a neighbour. A mother of a teenage son. He was rarely home, and when he was, we barely spoke. Finally, the nights spent poring over documents searching for clues of malpractice were consigned to history. I felt an echo of the delight from six months before when I watched from my front door as the police marched him away. Now, he stood unblinking, immaculate in a grey suit, instantly recognisable by his white hair and black-rimmed glasses. Inscrutable as always.
‘Murderer!’ The cry pierced the heavy air.
‘Silence!’ Defence held up a hand. ‘The accused is charged with criminal negligence causing eighty deaths. I call the first witness.’
The boy beside me hesitated.
‘You’ll be fine. Just don’t look at Mason Cole.’
He smiled and then, with his head bowed, strode across the pitch and onto the stage. Caramel hair framed his round face, and his yellow top declared, ‘I’M THE FUTURE’. I resisted the urge to rush to him. It could be Jude up there. No child should endure such an ordeal.
‘Tell them what that bastard did!’
The shouting man shook his fist while standing on a seat in the front row. It was the brother. The boy on the stage waved. Then, in a crystal-clear voice, he recounted how he once felt privileged to be one of Mason Cole's youth mentees, a budding biotech scientist working on ways to accelerate recovery from illness and injury. Until he discovered that his mother was part of Cole’s clinical trial and received her experimental vaccine for the latest virulent strain of Bubonic plague ripping through the USA. Like the seventy-nine others, she didn’t survive. My heart went out to the boy. What courage. Standing there, in front of thousands of people. The crowd leapt up from their seats and shook their fists, firing insults at Cole. Only the people in the North Stand remained silent—Cole’s small band of supporters in the brittle crowd.
A few minutes later, shaking, the boy wilted onto his seat beside me.
‘You did great. Be proud,’ I said.
The blood on his thumbnail was dry.
Defence called a further ten witnesses. With each damning account, the city dwellers took to their feet and roared their disgust. Then it was my turn. I scaled the five steps, lifted onto the stage by a gust of fear and fury with the first word wedged in my throat. I swallowed, aware of the wind ruffling my curls and the sweat running down my neck. Someone wearing a scarlet top waved from the middle tier. I wondered if they knew me and waved back, dropping my hand by my side when Defence coughed and told me to begin.
‘My name is Kit Harding...’
After the first sentence, I spilt the evidence as if vomiting the last five years of my work life. A list of documents proving Mason Cole’s organisation, Malexion BioTech, produced the unregulated vaccine; details of when, where and how the vaccine was administered to the eighty victims; and evidence from post-mortems of the dead. Mothers. Daughters. Sisters. Fathers. Brothers. Sons. The words slipped off my tongue like eels from a wet board as I carefully avoided Cole’s gaze. His ability to intimidate with a glance or a cutting remark was unnerving. With each passing minute, I raised my voice over the din of the crowd.
‘Silence.’ Defence bellowed. ‘The evidence must be heard.’
When I was done, I turned to Mason Cole. Guarded and bound, he couldn’t touch me now. His face was blank, except for a twitch under his right eye. I stared for a moment. What was he thinking? You could never tell. As Defence asked me to leave the stage and invited Cole to respond, what he thought was no longer of any consequence. If they locked him up, all he could do was think. His sickening actions were at an end.
When I neared my seat, grinning, the boy witness held up his thumb.
‘He’ll love this,’ I said, ‘never misses an opportunity to hold court.’
Mason Cole held out his arms and looked to the guards, asking for the pain ring to be removed. They ignored him, and there was more abuse from the crowd, drowning out the cheers from the North Stand. Cole raised his arms in the air, wrists still locked together, until silence fell when he let them drop to his crotch. I imagined a public appearance was a novel experience for him, as real-life gatherings were a thing of the past.
‘People.’ Cole projected his voice like a professional. ‘Malexion BioTech has saved millions of lives. We delivered our mission, Preserving Life. Regarding these charges, their deaths are a tragedy. And my thoughts are with the families of the deceased. But all eighty recipients of the vaccine consented to the procedure. I submitted proof to the justices and trust they will make the right decision today.’
‘He’s guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.’
The chants echoed around the stadium like a war cry while Cole paced around the stage, taking the guards with him like disgruntled bouncers fixed to his arms. His supporters in the North Stand were on their feet, pointing to the defendant in a plea to let him speak. Defence huddled with the other justices, their collective gaze fixed on Cole, and once the stadium was quiet again, he continued.
‘Our survival depends upon advanced biotechnology. The plague in the US is raging. Traditional treatments are failing. Production facilities destroyed or out of use. Open your eyes. While our city drowns, new and unknown threats lurk in the water. You may not like my methods. But we have reached a tipping point. Radical solutions are our only hope. I have the key to our survival. The justices convict me today at their peril.’
‘Enough,’ Defence thundered. ‘This defence is inadmissible.’
Cole ignored him. ‘Your future lies in my hands. There is no alternative.’
Defence left the other justices and, towering over Cole, waved him to one side of the stage. Cole had no choice as the guards marched him down the steps to the front of the stage. The impassioned crowd rose to their feet as Defence sank into the seat reserved for the Chief Justice while the others conferred.
‘Arrogant shit,’ I spat.
The boy beside me paled. ‘But what if he gets off?’
‘He can’t. The evidence is overwhelming.’
The man who’d consumed my life over the previous five years stood like a robot on idle between the two guards, their weapons primed. Images of him holed away in his research centre, devising his latest experimental cure, played in my mind. Malexion was a toxic organisation, and Cole was a killer. On top of accessing secure Malexion documents, I’d spent days observing his research centre, a stunning glass pyramid deep in a northwest forest, covertly extracting information from employees. Nothing supported Cole’s claim of a radical solution for survival. Rumours that the pyramid was a gateway to a virtual world where biotech accelerated healing were the stuff of science fiction—a step too far, even for Cole. Yet, he dared to claim he was our saviour. I fired invisible darts from my eyes, hoping they might pierce his frozen heart. What mattered was justice for the people he’d killed. The victims he considered collateral damage. Finally, it was nearly over. The elected justices would decide the verdict, with a majority needed. Defence had the casting vote.
A stiffening breeze brought a wall of steely cloud from the west. Flooding seemed inevitable. I was eager to get back to Jude before the storm. The beaten-up Honda was dodgy enough without another long journey in torrential rain.
